How can you tell someone something horrible yet true about themselves and yet instead of punching you in the face they instead react with laughter and even more, they ask you do it again. The answer is you do it with comedy. There are so many life skills that men should at least dip their fingers in to live the fullest and though I hate this term most “effective” life possible. Meaning that they get all that they want out of life.
Sometimes the list can seem endless. Sales skills, fighting, bushcraft, general health, mechanics, woodworking, social skills, public speaking, leadership, story telling, and on and on and on and on. It can seem like life is just one big list of things that you should be working at. And I understand. Its often overwhelming all of the things that you “have to” or at least are “supposed to” do.
And there’s only so much time during a day. There are a couple of solutions to this. First off understand that you don’t have to have everything perfected today and second realize that you don’t have to become an expert in these things either. You just have to have a passing familiarity. It’s not like you have to become the next Zig Ziglar, GSP, and George Carlin all rolled into one.
Just having a passing familiarity with each. Especially comedy.
The Many & Varied Uses Of Comedy
There’s a whole you can do with comedy or at least understanding how to find the humor in things. I’m not saying you have to make jokes or be the “funny” guy whatever that means, just have a basic understanding of humor and how it works and how to make the most of it in your life. Life’s very hard and long without a sense of humor and irony. Its important to be able to look around you and laugh at the absurdity. Because if you don’t laugh then you’re going to cry.
Having an understanding of humor or what we’re calling comedy here helps you get through the day, it helps you from staring into the abyss for too long and falling in. When we look around the world today we need comedy because things can be so dark and so bleak. Instead of getting angry or depressed, laughing at the situation and the absurdity of it all is a much better prescription. And not just for your own sanity.
If you ever wanted to challenge the social paradigms and such of this time you’d never get there through lecture, you’d get there through making fun of it, through comedy. Paraphrasing Voltaire if you tell people the truth make sure to make them laugh or they’ll kill you. Comedy is not only good for your own sanity and wellbeing but for pointing out the follies and foibles of this world and making light of them.
The Social Uses Of Comedy
Comedy can also be used as a sort of social lubricant and given that humans are social animals no matter what you’re doing in life, having better social skills will never hurt you. We all complain how its more about who you know then what you know yet at the same time very few people spend the time working on their social skills. Some people think they’re too good for it while others think social skills come preprogrammed in so they don’t need it.
Both are wrong and both suffer for their wrongness. Again the ability to understand what’s funny and point it out helps social interactions flow more smoothly. People like funny people, not people who try to be funny or try to be known as the “funny guy” but rather people who are genuinely funny, people who have a developed sense of humor.
Humor can help you with everything from climbing the social ladder, to making a friend, to preventing a beating, to getting a date, to changing a mind, and more. It’s one of those things that goes good with just about anything and having a developed sense of humor is never going to hurt you. Especially because part of having a developed sense of humor is knowing when to use it.
Comedy For A Good Life
Changing the minds of people, pointing out the craziness of the world, helping with depression, there are few things that comedy isn’t going to help with. It’s a close cousin of story telling and I think both add more to a man’s life than both would ever expect. Both are primal needs, the needs to hear a good story and the need to laugh. So even though both might seem superfluous they actually are just above food, shelter, water, and sex if you think about it. Don’t discount comedy just like you shouldn’t discount story.
Hopefully I’ve outlined enough here that’ll make you at least want to dabble in it.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter here.
-Charles Sledge
